Timeline Of A Renovation, AKA The Descent Into Madness

I like to start the summer with a Post-It

listing the projects I'd like to get done before school starts.

Kitchen!

I wrote optimistically.

I planned  to take up the gross old tile,

put down new laminate tile,

paint the walls,

and install a pantry.

It was going to be great!!

But then...

summer ran down, and I looked hard at the kitchen.

Oy.

It was going to be a lot of work.

So I re-calibrated, and decided to...

That seemed doable.

It's hard to photograph the grossness of the entryway (and kitchen) tile.

It's porous, so it's literally never clean, no matter how much I scrub it.

And... let's be honest. I don't scrub it often.  

Why bother, when it won't look much different, anyway?

Soooooo...

Day One!

I swung my sledgehammer,

deployed my tile scraper,

and after a few hours it was all up.

Y'know the weird thing?

As per the internet's advice,

I covered the tile with an old towel while I whacked away at it.

The tile cut holes in the towel...

and the holes were actually burnt at the edges!

The friction or something melted my towel!  

Yikes!!

I pushed the tiles into piles, loaded them up in buckets and boxes,

and drug them out to the trash.

It was time for a break, so I took my grubby, sweaty self to the Bamboo Cafe

for a take-out boba tea and Vietnamese egg sandwich...

... and then I came home and applied the vinyl tiles.

I was a tad tired when I was done.

And holy moly, was I freaking DIRTY!

My poor beauty school pedicure!  It shone so bravely through the grime!

(Sidenote:  if you're getting a pedicure and want your legs

to be silky-smooth for the beautician?

Don't forget your feet.

It looked like I was resting hobbit feet in Carol's lap.)

After I scrapped myself from the floor

I finished the night with a Silkwood Shower.

I literally had to scrub my arms, legs and feet with a fingernail brush

to get all the sticky grime off.

.

.

.

Day Two!

From past experience, I know that days two and three can be the hardest part.

(I rarely do a job that takes longer than three days. 

It's just too stressful for the Sweet Man.)

The bulk of the job is often done,

but I need the extra oomph to put my sweaty work clothes back on,

get the tools out again,

and power on through and finish up.

And this time, I also had to deal with

THIS.

"What's the problem?" you ask.

"It's just a box of leftover tile, right?"

Yes, to you or me, it looks like a box of tile.

But to my kitty Jack?

Well, let's just say Jackie has

a drunken frat boy's casual definition of what constitutes a "toilet."

Wooooo!!!!  No Porta-Potty?  No problem!!!

Jack is the coolest cat I've ever owned (in a long line of cool cats);

he is in fact the Springsteen of kitties, BUT if it's a box?

He considers it a litter box.

So before I could grout, I grumpily had to take all the tiles out of the box

and clean them off with Lysol scrubby-wipes.

(I should buy stock in these dang things, I go through so many in my pet-filled household.)

But I can't stay mad at him, that sweet Jackie-cat.

He really is a love.

Aaaaanyway, I efficiently grouted up the area

and while the grout was drying, I tackled another job:

repainting the floorboards and walls near the floor.

Lady MacGyver tip!

I didn't want to use the big paint tray for such a little job,

so I just lined a small cardboard box with tinfoil.

After painting, I sealed the grout,

reattached the floorboards,

and picked up all the tools and trash that are the byproduct of a renovation.

My secret weapon to staying on task for this last slog?

An audiobook!

Listening to Ann Patchett's steady voice as she recounted her friendship

with sister writer Lucy Grealy tethered and focused me,

so I was less likely to noodle on the computer  work on another project.

By the time the Sweet Man and the Boy came home,

the floor was ready to walk on and dinner preparations were in progress.

Not so bad, right?

But let me tell you: renovations are like childbirth. 

It's easy to forget the sweating and screaming and only remember the results.

Awww, isn't a pwecious widdle entryway?

And they always, ALWAYS take longer than expected.

I can GUARANTEE that a floorboard will shatter, 

paint will run out,

or tiles will be just half an inch too big on one side,

 requiring laborious chipping of a dozen tiles to shave down to the right size.

But!

 Without my sweat equity and envelope of Etsy cash,

we'd still be living with smudged flat-white walls,

 eau de pet dingy carpeting,

and tile that is grosser than a bus station's bathroom.

So I say...

Figure It Out ONCE

It's spring break, so what does that mean?

Long days at the beach?

Mornings with tea and a book?

Afternoons at the mall?

Nope, it's...

HOME RENOVATION TIME!

The guy who flipped our house before we bought it, bless his heart,

evidently dealt with a hoarder-type situation. 

I appreciate the mountains of STUFF he cleared out,

but what I DON'T appreciate is that he used the cheapest materials to spiff up the place.

So slowly and methodically, room by room,

I've been using my Etsy money to brighten and liven the house.

I keep cost down by either doing the labor myself or

with the help of my amateur labor force, the Boy...

(It's handy having someone tall enough to get the top of the walls, without a stepladder.)

... and the Girl:

(Here she is, post - "Pi-VOT!" moment with the Boy's bed.)

Speaking of the Boy...this break, it was time to tackle his room:

Ugh.  Look at that sad carpet, those dirty white walls.  

It's not his fault:  like I said, the paint and carpeting were cheap, cheap, cheap,

so it doesn't clean easily.

But, look!

What a pretty color for the walls!  What a lovely, clean-looking laminate floor!

The Boy emptied most of his room in one day,

and the next the Girl and I took up the carpet, painted the walls,

and re-floored with a nice vinyl laminate.

(I'm not getting paid by the Allure people; I just really like their stuff.)

And what was the handiest tool for this renovation?

THIS BOOK:

Since my renovations are spread out,

I don't always remember details from each one.

So a few projects back I began this composition book.  Each renovation has an entry,

and each entry has very specific notes on what I learned.

For example, I had noted that old spools are perfect for painting baseboards.

 Unfortunately, I hadn't written down that the heavy tile scraper

was the way to remove those awful carpet nail strips, and I didn't remember

until after I'd slowly hacked and splintered a few with a screwdriver and chisel.

 

But I've made a note in my journal, so next time I'll be slicing away at those strips

from the very beginning!